


that gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

by stargent



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: F/M, I'd Choose You, Rich People Really Are Different, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-28 22:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargent/pseuds/stargent
Summary: The worst part of reliving the same night over and over is not the various paths she could’ve taken but that no matter the path, the end result remains the same.Her in-laws explode and her husband betrays her.(Not, obviously, in that order.)
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas
Comments: 34
Kudos: 946





	that gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

**Author's Note:**

> heavily influenced by "i'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, i'd find you and i'd choose you" because it screams grace/daniel

Grace watches the incoming fire trucks, the lone ambulance that will only find the remnants of the maids rather than any of her in-laws’ bodies. 

A figure appears in front of her, clad in a paramedic’s uniform, and she tilts her head up, squinting around the brightness of the rising sun, unable to make out their face.

“You haven’t won yet.”

Her fingers tremble around the base of her cigarette. “Excuse me?”

“Did you believe it would be so easy?” The man chides, his accent is unfamiliar, a twang that has become lost somewhere in time.

“I did win,” she’s shaking, but gathers enough resolve to flick her ash in his face and steel her gaze. “I survived.”

The man tuts and she knows his face now, it's the one that appeared like a fiery reflection, sitting in the high-backed chair right before the manor went up in flames. “The game is not over.”

“I hid, they did the seeking. I lasted until dawn.”

“They did not find you. It was you who found them.”

Grace stands and her balance waivers; she knows it's due to either infection or blood loss, or maybe even both, that she’s starting to become numb all over.

The man in front of her might not even be real; he may just be a hallucination conjured by her subconscious mind, her hidden fears coming to life now that she has the capacity to address her trauma.

She finds herself listing to the side, unable to steady herself, while the man in front of her transforms into an effulge of burnt oranges and vivid reds. 

In the back of her mind, she hears the sound of a record scratching. 

Grace jolts with a rapidly beating heart.

Everything is as it once was; her hand whole, her dressed pristine, hair still tightly coiffured. She's holding the edge of her wedding dress in one hand while large double doors swing to a close behind her. 

The ring on her finger catches in the candlelight. She chucks the set across the room.

Inside the game room, the song begins playing.

She runs.

ﾟ:･

It takes only one full night for her to realize that the Le Domases don’t seem to retain their memories. Not like she does.

Sometimes they’ll look confused, like they’re experiencing a sense of deja-vu, but outside of those few and far between looks, they seem to have no recollection of their previous lives, of their continuous deaths.

It makes her life both easier and somehow terribly worse than it already is.

After the second or third time (or fourth or fifth— it's all become a gruesome blur at this point) Grace tries out different scenarios. 

During one instance, she cuts all of the power, effectively locking them all in, and listens to them accidentally kill off one another.

On another, she spends locked away in Helene’s closet; she leaves a nasty voicemail on Alex’s phone, detailing all the ways she’s seen him die thus far and how she wishes she could pull the trigger herself, yet never seems able to. 

She tells him she loves him, tells him she hates him more and more with each passing night.

Grace spends the rest of that night playing Tetris on the phone she stole from Fitch while listening to the symphony of her in-laws' screams reach a terrible crescendo.

Once, she waits for them all to gather in the music room, using her “female problems” as an excuse to delay, and bars them all in before they even realize that she’s not going to show.

She locks the servants' entrance and takes the handle off of the kitchen door, leaving every member of the family trapped— including Stevens.

In the time between then and dawn, she takes a hot bath, pairs it with red wine and leftover wedding cake.

She doesn’t leave the large claw foot tub, not even when her fingers prune and her skin becomes exceedingly warm to the touch. 

Every so often she’ll use her foot to nudge the facet on in order to chase away the chill of the sitting water.

The_ Hide and Seek _ tune plays on repeat until dawn breaks. 

(When she wakes, she’s cold down to the marrow of her bones.)

In an act of sheer exasperation and manic desperation, Grace spends the next night attempting to circumvent the entire game by making her own deal. She drags a goat into the game room and stands above it with a knife, prepared to say or do anything to end this eternal nightmare.

Only her arms falter and shake and she finds herself crying, unable to look into the goat’s eyes.

She lets the goat free and listens to Fitch scream in terror right before he explodes.

The goat returns to her covered in blood, eating a section of Becky’s dress. 

(Grace avoids the barn the next few go-arounds.)

･:ﾟ

Barring the occasions she acts out a frustrated impulse or a delirious whim, Grace always ends up watching Daniel die.

He always tries to help her, despite his layers of self-deprecation and self-proclaimed cowardice, and every single_ fucking time _, he dies.

She’s even tried to avoid him; choosing different routes, killing off Charity or Helene or even Emilie in order to lessen whatever compulsion it is that drives him to help her, only he steadfastedly manages to wind up at her side. 

On her side.

Sometimes it takes him a little longer to get there; torn between his family and her life. She’ll wait him out during those times, so certain of him even if he never quite believes in himself the way she does.

In those instances, he’ll turn to her and she’ll catch something in his eyes, an emotion she’s never been quite able to place.

And every time she’ll watch it dim as he dies in her arms.

He’s her one single constant.

ﾟ:･

While being stuck in a seemingly endless loop— due to the Le Domas’s inability to kill her and her inability to let them— Grace has been able to learn a lot about the people who are trying, and failing, to murder her in the name of Satan (_ All Hail _).

More than what Alex has told her— which is nothing, really, outside of his siblings birth order, their birthdays, and how one time Emilie lost her kid in an airport on the way to Portugal.

During one night, Grace accidentally finds out that Dora was a dancer at an erotic club Tony frequented. She also learns during Dora’s rambling confessions of her sins that while Tony had hired her on as a maid to keep her close, they hadn’t consummated their relationship as of yet (motor-boating does _ not _ count, according to a remarkably stoned Emilie, who Grace confides in during this sequence.)

She informs Becky of his infidelity during their show-down moment— it's not a constant, like Daniel, but a common enough occurrence— and listens to Tony’s pleas as Becky shifts her target, placing him under the barrel of her gun.

He and Alex sound eerily similar as they beg their wives for a chance at repetition; like father like son and all that.

(Grace ignores the fact that she and Becky are more alike than they seem. It's easier for those nights where she has to kill her.)

She finds out more about her mother-in-law in bits and pieces after that. Never through full conversation (unless it's apart of some unnecessary monologue, of course). 

Grace learns Becky took archery lessons while pregnant with Emilie, learned to use a switchblade when she was ten, and that she was ultimately not the first choice for Tony’s wife.

According to Becky, who feels oddly chatty one night in the dining room, Tony had a long-term girlfriend before her from a well-bred family. The girl left him for his golf partner and he spiraled out of control, drinking too much and doing every drug possible, leading him to meet Becky in the back of a bar and taking her home without even learning her name.

Becky tells her, with a blade pressed to Grace’s throat, that sometimes she thinks her husband had wanted her to pull the card, providing him an opportunity to prove himself to his family and fix his mistake. 

Instead, she had received backgammon and invested time in a shooting range. The next time the game was played, it was Helene’s husband who pulled it.

Her mother-in-law tells her that she wonders if thats how Alex views this game: as an opportunity to prove himself, a way to fix his mistake. Becky’s eyes are sharper than the knife in her hand, her words draw blood even though the cold blade remains still against Grace’s throat. 

She tells Grace on a hushed whisper that neither of them are mistakes. Her breath is hot against Grace’s ear, close enough that she can hear the catch in her breath, the tremor in her words.

Grace kills her quickly and throws up afterwards.

In another universe, she figures Becky would’ve made a wonderful mother-in-law. 

It’s just too damn bad she’s trying to kill her in this one.

･:ﾟ

The worst part of reliving the same night over and over is not the various paths she could’ve taken, but that no matter the path the end result remains the same. 

Her in-laws explode and her husband betrays her.

(Not, obviously, in that order.)

The nights always start right after she pulls the card; right before the record begins to play. 

On one occasion, she starts out feeling hopeful; strangely determined that maybe its _her_ who needs to make a change, that she needs to go give Alex the opportunity to strip himself of his masks.

She’s changed from her wedding dress to leggings and a hoodie; there is a knife strapped to her leg and she’s already stolen Charity’s gun from her purse, tucking it away into her waistband.

It’s not the first time she’s gone through the loop, isn’t even the fifth or six. Her own fear of learning the truth about her husband has kept her from confronting him, choosing to let him die with the lingering taste of bitter resentment on her tongue rather than voice the words burning like bile in her throat.

This time, Grace confronts him. Surrounded by darkness and the dim lighting of the tunnels that she’s already become accustomed to, she waits and asks him the honest truth.

Alex falters, stares at her with a tortured expression and attempts to spin her a pretty lie. She stops him, voice breaking, emotion seeping into every word.

She needs to know.

He doesn’t meet her gaze when he tells her that if she had pulled any other card, he never would’ve told her about the game. 

She doesn’t punch him in the face, but her fingers curl in anyways.

He keeps talking, building up momentum, trying to convince her that his lies where for their greater good, for the good of their future. 

That he loved her enough to keep her safe.

Grace’s eyes burn with unshed tears when she finally gathers enough strength to look at him again. It's the first time she sees the face of a stranger staring back at her.

She feels sick all over, body wracked with chills yet her skin is hot to the touch. 

It all becomes suddenly unbearable; all too much and she doesn’t stop Alex when be brings her to his family once he realizes the severity of his truths. 

_ He’ll never let her go _.

The truth is slowly killing her, worse than the knife that’ll eventually slice across her neck, and they make it to the ostentatious purple robes and the chanting when a choice is made for her.

Daniel helps her off the table, just as he did that very first night, whisking her out of the room and towards the illusion of freedom. 

His hand remains secure in hers until suddenly his grip goes lax, slipping from her fingers before she can strengthen her hold.

He falls to his knees, light dimming from his eyes, shot in the back by his own aunt, straight through his heart. 

Grace screams, screams, and screams.

This time she remains with him; she has nowhere to run, knows already how it’ll end. 

The sun’s rays are slowing breaking through the curtains.

She rests his head in her lap and runs her fingers through his hair, tells him all the wild, imaginable dreams she’s ever had and everyone one of her secrets— all but one.

He doesn’t seem to understand the fervor behind her words but he doesn’t tell her to run either.

Alex comes racing into the hallway as his brother stops breathing. She closes Daniel’s eyes, whispering her final secret into his ear. 

Lifting her head, tears sliding down her face, openly crying for the first time out of so many relieved nights, she meets Alex’s gaze without wavering.

With cool eyes and a fractured heart, she tells him that she’ll never forgive him. 

Not in this life, not in the next.

He explodes this time before he has the chance to beg.

The cycle begins again.

ﾟ:･

As it goes, she once again finds herself running for her life.

Which is on par, really. Nothing like a Friday night in the Le Domas manor. 

_ The same fucking Friday night. _

In a change of pace, Grace has managed to play the game well this time around. She’s remained unseen for the first few hours, darting down hallways and through the hidden tunnels, always a hair’s breadth away from being caught. 

Somehow, Daniel manages to find her, because he always does. His hand wraps tightly around arm, tugging her into a nearby room.

She goes, turning to face him, licking at his palm when he tries to cover her mouth, apparently assuming she’d scream in fear. 

He makes a twisted frown is disgust, instantly wiping his hand off on his shirt, scoffing lightly. “Here I am, trying to save your life and this is the thanks I get?”

“Hey, that’s practically second base, babe,” she’s chipper this go around, mostly because it's been a productive night for her. 

She’s managed to lock Stevens in the security room, keep Georgie from shooting her hand by ambushing the little shit halfway to the kitchen and locking him in the mud room, avoid Alex completely, and create a tiny arsenal of weapons to choose from should the need arise.

Plus, Daniel has now found her much earlier than planned.

All in all, it's not the worst of the endless worst nights of her life.

Despite her jovial mood, Daniel’s eyes remain somber. “Grace, we’ve got to get you out of here.” He opens the door, looking both ways down the hall, then fixes her with a stare over his shoulder. “Come on.”

On impulse, she reaches for him. Her one constant; he belongs to her in a different way, one that he’s not even aware of, but it’s hers and hers alone.

Selfishly, she craves it; craves the feeling that comes with knowing Daniel will always choose her, no matter the consequence. 

He takes her hand without even looking, continuing forward as if he, too, remembers.

Grace tells him that if things go sour, there’s a little bottle with a red cap in Dora’s room. Tells him that a small dose will make his family slightly sick, a larger dose will make them suffer from both ends.

Daniel doesn’t even question how she knows that; just stares owl-eyed at her before nodding.

They make it to the end of the hallway leading towards the music room when footsteps descend rapidly down the stairs. They both move in tandem, disappearing under the alcove. 

He keeps her close and she palms the gun she stole from Georgie.

“Grace?” Its Alex who turns the corner and Grace startles. _ This _ is new. 

There have been times he finds her early on, before she can wreak havoc, or, in the early days, before his family has managed to carve a chunk out of her for themselves, but they are always few and far between.

A bit of her pep slips out of her step. 

Alex looks between her and Daniel, confusion flashing across his features. 

Grace knows Alex is waiting for her to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck and sob desperately in his arms. He wants to be the hero; the good guy. 

It's been a long time since she’s been able to look at him and see anything good at all.

She remains at Daniel’s side, doesn’t do more than slide her gun back inconspicuously.

Though, by the way Daniel’s eyes flicker downwards, she’s certain he knows about the weapon, that or he’s checking out her ass.

A smile quirks in the corner of her lips and he sighs, though she can tell he’s slightly amused and a little impressed.

(She’s gotten good at a lot of things by reliving the same night: improving her aim, cutting through her husband’s bullshit— as well as cutting through bone, picking locks, sneaking in and out of rooms, enduring copious amounts of pain without screaming, and reading Daniel Le Domas’s facial expressions.)

Alex is staring at them with an expression that is growing more concerned by the moment. “Grace, are you okay?”

“You bet,” she waves her bandaged hand, caused by her own miscalculation over Georgie’s reflexes, and drops her voice to a bare whisper. “We can’t be sitting around in the open though. Your family is trying to kill me, in case you didn’t know.

He flinches, then checks around the corridor, gesturing for them to follow him.

Grace looks up at Daniel, who shrugs, and the two of them trail behind Alex into the study.

He locks the door behind them, then bars the tunnel’s entrance.

Daniel lets go of Grace’s hand and ambles over to the pool table where the decanter sits. It's a familiar scene and this time when he offers her the glass, she takes it. 

“_ Jesus _ that’s strong.” She coughs, face screwing up into a look of displeasure and discomfort. Daniel snorts out a laugh, accepting the glass when she hastily hands it back to him. “How do you drink that shit?”

“This is a vintage bottle,” he tells her over the rim, “its for celebrations only.”

Grace coughs again though this time its on her indignation. “What _ is _ it with rich people?”

“Rich people really are different,” Daniel agrees, turning his attention from her over to Tony’s portrait. It's a familiar tune and the rest of his unspoken speech plays out in her head.

Off to the side, Alex finishes his attempts towards opening any of the windows. “Everything is still locked. I tried to get to the security system but Stevens was still inside.”

Grace doesn’t mention that it’s her fault they’re trapped inside a locked house. 

Every time Alex unlocks the security system, Georgie manages to find her and draw blood.

The kid is ridiculously lucky. Unlike his mother who has never yet managed to shoot Grace.

Plus, the whole thing would lead to more questions than answers if she did say something, and she’s already gone down that route once.

(That night ended prematurely with her sitting alone in the dining room, her head pounding, a pressure building behind her eyes while the family bickered their way to their deaths. Daniel had remained quietly by her side the entire night, his apology lost by the sound of him exploding. 

A throbbing headache had remained for the entirety of that following night.

It was the first and only time she experienced lingering symptoms.)

So Grace stays quiet instead, letting Alex check the room over, trying the phone to no avail. Pushing herself up onto the pool table, she swings her feet and rests her cheek on her shoulder, watching Daniel from under her lashes.

He turns slightly, letting her know he’s aware of her observance, and swirls the amber liquid around in his glass.

She can tell he’s thinking; his brows furrow when he’s in deep thought, lips unconsciously pressing together ever so slightly into a thin line.

“Grace, honey,” Alex’s made his way over to her, hands shoved into his pockets. He looks a bit sheepish, a little bit wary; just waiting for her to explode in his face. She lightly snorts at the thought. “It's going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.”

“I’m fine,” she says and finds it strange that she means it. She’s learned not to let the fear control her anymore.

Too many nights ruled by the fear of his family has left her broken and bruised— even if the physical wounds never carry over, the scars have remained.

She’s no damsel, she’s not in distress. 

Alex attempts to hold her hand, but she slides it away, covering the movement with a feigned cough that Alex seems to buy. “We won’t have much time in here. It’s going to be sooner rather than later that they’ll realize we’re both missing.”

Grace realizes belatedly that Alex is addressing Daniel, effectively cutting her out of the conversation. She narrows her eyes at his back, hand reaching up, fingers curling as she mimes strangling him. 

Daniel hides his smirk by taking another long swig.

“We can’t outrun them,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. She’s played this game countless of times, only no matter how hard she tries, she can’t seem to beat it. “Hiding won’t change anything, either.”

“You sound certain.”

“I am.” She bites at her lower lip, tugging at the chapped skin. Her fingers tapping the _ Hide and Seek _ tune on the side of the pool table as she thinks. “The whole idea is that you kill me as a sacrifice. Maybe someone else needs to make a sacrifice instead.”

Alex seems to look at her strangely; she can’t quite place the look on his face. It leaves her feeling wary. Hopping down, she puts more space between them, choosing to look at the windows rather than face him. 

“I thought it had to be the person who pulled the card?”

Grace shrugs, the movement earns a twinge from her shoulder and she ignores the stiffness growing there. Twisting around, she grabs the eight ball, tossing it between her hands as she continues her monologue.

“The game has to have rules. A few basic rules have already been laid out for us: no modern electronics, dawn is the cutoff, and someone has to die. Only Helene says it has to be the bride and, let's be honest, I think she’s so adamant for that outcome because she hates me.” When Daniel and Alex simply look at each other, Grace gestures, “see what I mean.”

Daniel puts down his drink and wanders over to her side, “So, what? We sacrifice someone else?”

Tapping her chin, Grace tilts her head in consideration. She slides onto one of the bar stools, her bad ankle smarting, reminding her of its tentative strength. “It has to be family, or else the game would’ve been over when Emilie shot one of the maids.”

Alex takes a step back, his eyes wide, throat bobbing. He looks a bit stricken at her words. “You’re asking us to sacrifice someone in our family?”

Grace’s lips part, incredulousness rising her brows, bafflement etching itself throughout her features. “You’re shitting me, right? Because you’re family is actively trying to _ kill me _, Alex. And you’re worried about us killing one of them?”

“I—”

“I’ll do it. I'll be the sacrifice." Daniel says it on a tight breath and it takes both Grace and Alex a moment to realize just what he’s said.

Alex looks genuinely shocked, one hand coming to rest on the space above his abdomen. “Danny, _no_.”

“Daniel, please.” In all honesty, Grace was going to suggest Charity. She’s not sure if it would’ve been a sacrifice though, since neither Charity nor Daniel have ever been the slightest bit concerned over whether the other lives or dies. 

Still, it would’ve been better than his foolhardy suggestion.

_ Anything would be. _

She tells him as much and ignores the self-deprecating smile he sends her. 

“Don’t you _ dare _, Daniel.” She warns because she can’t lose him again— she won’t. Grace tosses the eight-ball around in her hands again, considers knocking him out with it.

He’s her constant; the only hold she has on who she is is tethered to him, a little red string wrapped around their pinkies keeping them connected to each other and to themselves.

After so many relieved nights, Daniel’s been the one thing she’s been certain on from the start, the unwavering balance between being the girl who survives and the girl who destroys.

This night, though. It’s all wrong.

This time feels different. Too real.

She’s suddenly overtaken with a foreboding sensation. That if she loses him now, she might lose him forever. 

Daniel studies her for a long time. She never once dares to look away.

The mysterious emotion appears like a thin film across his eyes, giving him the appearance similar to a man possessed. Grace swallows and slips quietly from the stool, tentatively considering her options.

“You know what you have to do, Alex.” Daniel turns to his brother, manages a tight but genuine smile. “Its okay. I trust you to make the right choice.”

Alex’s breath shudders in his chest, his tongue darting across his lips before he nods. “I’m sorry.”

Daniel looks strangely at peace, no longer afflicted by the shadows around his eyes. He lowers his gun and offers his little brother what comfort he can give him. “I know, buddy.”

Grace lets out a sharp noise, a plea, but neither brother pays her any mind. 

It’s then that she realizes with startling clarity the hidden rules of the game. Though, she wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to do this, but he does. If not, the game begins again.

Its Alex who has to choose; the game requires a sacrifice of love. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says again, his voice the barest hint above a whisper and makes his choice.

Two very distinct things happen simultaneously. 

The blade comes into contact with flesh, tears through fabric, and just barely misses its mark. 

The echo of a gunshot sings through the air and finds purchase, blood pooling from the wound onto shaking hands and the handle of a knife.

Alex looks up at Daniel, his mouth parted, shock coloring his eyes a darker shade of blue, as Grace staggers backward on a gasping scream, a jagged tear above her breast. 

“Jesus Christ,” Daniel looks to his brother’s prone form and then back to Grace, who’s covering her wound with both hands, yet blood has begun to seep between her fingers, tear drop stains landing on the carpet. “Grace— _ Fuck_. Grace, are you okay?”

“_No_, Daniel! I am not okay! He just fucking stabbed me!” She’s laughing and crying at the same time; an absurd reaction for someone who’s lived through this game so many times she’s lost count, and yet the hysteria bubbles rapidly.

In comparison to the other wounds she’s suffered— a gunshot through the hand, a fireplace poker to her Achilles heel, a dozen or so grazed bullets (each one courtesy of Emilie) and one unfortunate tangle with Helene’s axe that left her arm hanging at an equally unpleasant and uncomfortable angle— this one resonates deep within her bones, the pain radiating through every nerve-ending.

She feels painfully alive.

Daniel’s managed to find a towel of some sort and applies it with shaky hands to her skin. She breathes out a wheezing noise, strangely lightheaded. “I shot him.” 

Grace glares down at the body of her selfish, spineless husband. “He stabbed me. That _fucker_.”

Daniel hasn’t seem to have heard her, however. His eyes have gone a bit misty, jaw clenched tight. “He was supposed to be the good son. He was supposed to save you.”

Deciding its best to keep her commentary to herself, Grace chooses to soothe the obvious pain Daniel is feeling. It might not be physical, but it is a wound all the same. “He loved you,” she can’t exactly hug him in this position, so instead she places a hand over his. "He chose you because he loved you."

His head bows and she stares at his crown of dark curls. “And for what?” He asks, voice hoarse, breaking after each word. “The curse is still going to happen. Our whole family is still going to die.”

“No, it’s over.” Grace sways on her feet, accepts Daniel’s ready hand even though she can feel the tremors passing through his fingers. He navigates her over to a chair and she sinks down, knees instantly giving way. 

Daniel stares down at her in obvious confusion. “The game—”

“Is over, yeah.” She stretches out, rotating her stiff joints. She’s going to vomit or pass out or maybe both. It’s worse than any hangover she’s ever experienced. 

“Alex made a choice, but, so did you.” The emotion in his eyes that she’s never been able to place is now clearly visible in her own. “You chose me.”

Daniel closes his eyes, presses his fingers tight against them. He drops his hands and looks over to Alex’s body. He's not dead, but he will be. “You would’ve done the same. You would’ve chosen me over him.” 

Grace exhales a slightly delirious laugh, hearing the secret she whispered to him on one of those nights past finally spoken freely.

“Yes.” She knows he doesn’t remember that specific night, so many lives ago, but somehow he remembers that. 

It’s enough.

“Alex tried to sacrifice me because he knew I would never choose him. Not now, not after all of this.” Her smile is mirthless; sharp and angled into a twisted sneer that is uncomplimentary to her features and entirely dangerous. “You’re his brother. He knows how deep your loyalty runs, how your love is limitless. He was never worried about you leaving.”

“He chose you because you were going to leave him?”

“Basically,” she shakes her head and instantly regrets the movement. A headache has built in the base of her skull, throbbing relentlessly, “he did it because he was selfish. Because he was always a coward. He never got out, Daniel. He simply ran away.”

“That’s not true. He was different. The distance from the family…”

“That’s just because he believed I made him better. Alex has convinced himself that I was some sort of cure, someone who could fix him with my love.” The truth is a bitter pill that she finds quite difficult to swallow. Once it’s down, however, the aftertaste is much sweeter. “It wasn’t true. I didn’t make him better, I didn’t fix him. He just got really good at wearing a mask.”

“So, what, if he hadn’t of come home none of this would’ve happened?”

Out of all of the different scenarios; each failed attempt at winning the game, Grace had never stopped to consider the alternative. A life without ever becoming a Le Domas. 

She moves to shrug and then freezes mid-motion, pain radiating across her chest in warning. “Maybe. Though, honestly, probably not.” When Daniel’s gaze whips back over to her, Grace wishes she could give him the certainty he seeks. “I don’t know for sure, but I do know that your brother was always given options. No one forced him, Daniel.”

“We had to play the game.”

“He could’ve told me beforehand. He had every opportunity yet he was scared. Because he knew what would’ve happened. Alex was never the good brother, or son, or the golden what-the-fuck-ever. He was always selfish, weak, and a coward.”

“He’s my little brother.”

“I know,” she bites off the rest, forces herself to speak in softer tones. “He loved you, Daniel. It may not be enough but it’s the truth.”

“I know.”

“I loved him too.” Grace whispers, because she feels the need to say it, to remind herself that she didn't get this way on her own. “I was in love with him when I married him. It feels like years ago.” It might be; the nights she’s had to relive over and over has taken a toll on her, she’s not the same doe-eyed bride she started that very first night out as.

She looks to Daniel, understands how easy it is to confuse Alex’s cowardliness for strength and Daniel’s compassion for weakness. It's a mistake she at the very start, during that first fateful night; it's one she never made again during any other.

She doesn’t bother to hide her growing smile, “I knew I could trust you.”

When he takes another drink, Grace notes that his hands remain steady. “Yeah, well, I didn’t at the time.”

A scream breaks through whatever has occurred between them, creating a ripple in the air, and Grace readjusts the towel, her own blood making her fingers slick. 

“What the fuck?”

“Emilie what have you done?” It's definitely Tony; Grace knows the sound of one of his manic breakdowns anywhere. There’s a chorus of yelling, the family all shouting at one another, and Grace accepts the glass from Daniel, saluting him as she takes a long pull.

It hits her then, just as the liquid scalds its way down her throat, pooling like liquid flame in her stomach, that the voices are close.

In the music room.

Where on that first night, a fire erupted.

“Fuck,” she mutters, finishing the drink and ignoring the way Daniel blinks at her, slightly impressed, and grabs at his hand. “Time to go.”

“What?”

“Fire.” Is all she says, and sure enough by the time she opens the hallway, smoke billowing, the smell of wood burning coating the inside of her nostrils.

Daniel halts, pulling her to a quick stop, and he furrows his brows, head turning to glance down the hallways. They’re close to the entrance and Grace has to force herself to keep her hands still in Daniel’s, not wanting him to catch the way they shake. 

Images of him dying—shot in the neck, shot in the heart, the horrible time Charity shot him in the abdomen and it took him so long to die— flash behind her eyes. 

She’s powerless to stop it, doesn’t realize she’s breathed out a sob until Daniel’s covering her hand with his, looking down at her with those dark eyes of his. 

“Grace?”

Grace doesn’t know how to tell him _ I saw you die _ or _ I held you in my arms after your bitch of a wife left you to die_. Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she gathers herself in a single shaky breath, inhaling through her twisted tight ribs and exhaling when his chin comes to rest atop of her head.

It's not exactly a hug, one of her arms is trapped between them, but she feels safer than she’s felt in so many nights.

“We have to go,” he looks torn and Grace shakes her head, unwilling to let him die in this damn house, in this damn spot, one more time. “Daniel, we _ have _ to go.”

There’s a second where she’s holding her breath, awaiting his decision, his expression unreadable, eyes anguished and troubled. “The game is over?”

“Yes.” She knows what he’s asking, wants to reassure him, but she can’t guarantee that his family will make it out of the house. 

She can’t even guarantee that they won’t explode, but she knows deep inside that whatever has chained her to this damn night is now gone.

There are no more shackles around her; she’s free to leave.

(Only she can't, not without him.)

A beam crumples, a mix of splitters and ash, and Grace takes that as her cue.

“It was all about choices,” she tells him, and this time she’s the one pulling him out of the house, hastily turning the corners and dodging bits and pieces that have gone up in flames.

They make it outside, through where the door has been splintered apart—and she has some questions for _that—_ and over to the steps. She collapses in an unladylike heap. 

Daniel joins her, gaze caught over his shoulder as embers lick at the window panes. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone had a choice in the end. When it came to marrying into the family. Your mother was told that if she agreed to become a Le Domas she would have to put the family first, above all else. That she would belong to the Le Domases in life and death. She still chose Tony.” 

Daniel looks a mix of pensive and horrified by her side, which is a pretty apropos reaction considering his family’s abundance of sheer fuckery, and though her lungs ache from what may be smoke inhalation, she sucks in a raspy breath and continues on. “You told Charity the truth, offered her a choice. She chose the Le Domas name.”

“And the money. Don’t forget the money.” He runs a hand through his hair, “Emilie and Fitch?”

She throws her hands up, head shaking as she laughs. “I have no fucking clue. Neither of them seems to even remember how they met, let alone the wedding.”

“Figures.” Daniel pulls his handkerchief from his pocket, uses it to help with her still bleeding wound.

It doesn’t do much. She whispers her thanks anyways.

“What would’ve happened if Alex had chosen you?” Daniel asks as the sounds of the calvary grows closer.

_ Thank God for smoke detectors, _ Grace thinks on a shallow laugh.

Grace considers lighting a cigarette but the smell of ash and ember is already a thick cloud around her. Instead, she rests her head on Daniel’s shoulder and remembers a time when she sat on the same steps alone. 

“I would’ve divorced him.” 

She feels him jolt under her cheek and chuckles dryly. “I watched him die so many fucking times. Death would’ve been too easy for him. Living with the knowledge that he let all of this happen? That the only person stopping him from being that better man was him? _ That's _ a fate much worse than death.”

Daniel seems to consider it, opting to remain silent. His arm moves around her and she presses against his warmth.

“How many times?” Is what he finally asks sounding detached; his fingers keep picking at the fabric of his pants.

“Too many,” she wonders if Daniel feels it; that thread that kept bringing them back together, the choice both of them kept making. It's still there now, no longer tentative but inexorable. “Enough.”

She's not sure of he believes her... then again, his family did partake in human sacrifice because a wooden box controlled by a demon told them to, _so_.

“It's over now though, right?” He keeps her close when she begins to shake, a delayed aftereffect of the night’s trauma.

Every single relieved night seems to be doubling down on her at once.

She raises her head, her unbandaged hand coming to rest above his beating heart.

It beats under her palm, steady and true. “You’re alive.” Grace shudders, eyes squeezing tightly closed; she can still hear the sound of blood in his throat, the slicing of his skin, gunshot after gunshot.

“Hey, woah,” Daniel brushes his thumbs across her cheekbones, cups her face. “We’re _ both _ alive.”

Nodding, she lets her head lull, safe in his arms, and focuses on taking deep breaths. “If it helps, _that's_ never happened before.”

“Well, fuck. A bit of a downer but...Okay. _ Good_.” His head is bent towards her, breath hot against her neck and she turns slightly, hooded eyes looking up at him. 

It would be so easy to close the distance; to do what she’s never been able to do in any of the loops before.

But, if she’s learned anything through reliving the same hellish night of torturous repeat it's that timing is everything.

She’s lived a hundred lives over and he’s chosen her in every one.

He might not be there yet, but he will be, and she’ll be ready when he is.

After all, they have nothing but time.


End file.
